Tag Archives: Allied killings

Over sixty years have passed since the end of World War II which allows sufficient time for Germans and historians to take a calm look at the behavior of British and American troops in their clashes with German soldiers. Of course, there are Germans who seek to uncover atrocities and war crimes on the part of British and American soldiers in order to—? A minority of such individuals believes if Allied forces committed war crimes this somehow does something to “equate” these actions with the Holocaust. Anthony Beevor, a British historian has been uncovering stories during the D-Day sequence of fighting in which American and British soldiers killed wounded or captured German soldiers. Of course, they did, that is the way of brutal war and, most probably, every army in the history of humankind has committed such atrocities.

Beevor has uncovered story after story of an American soldier operating on the concept “the only good German is a dead one.” Yes, individuals behaved in such a manner. But, actions of individual soldiers has no comparison with a systematic government policy of killing each and every Jewish person in Europe. Ironically, in his accounts of these killings by Allied soldiers there is constant reference to someone in the group acting as a calming force who restrains those with blood in their hearts from proceeding in mass killings. There are no reports of German officers or enlisted men halting a planned murder of a group of Jews.

War is hell. But, the vast majority of German soldiers who surrendered were treated according to the Geneva Convention rules and procedures.